Trifariam, The Lost Codex (2012) (55 page)

Scott and Will ran out of the submarine and headed for the pyramid. Something wasn’t right.

The attacker’s face was contorted. He was wearing a neoprene suit which was tight against his defined physique. The beams from the headlights didn’t seem to bother him at all. He proceeded to knee Richard hard in the ribs, knocking him to the ground. He took out his favorite knife while he strangled the paleographer in order to wear down his strength. He was unable to free himself, and no matter how hard he wriggled and kicked, he only managed to add to his attacker’s pleasure. He raised the knife up high and was getting ready to deliver a well-aimed stab when Scott took him by surprise and hit him over the head with a rock, leaving him slightly stunned on the ground.

“Three minutes! Shit, it’s going to come down!”

They helped Richard up and ran out of the pyramid with the source in their possession. They looked at the top of the dome in sheer terror, as it could crack like thin glass at any moment.

Just when they had got down the staircase, a couple of drops landed on Scott’s face. At that very moment, Alpha 2 was scrambling out of the opening in the pyramid and starting a bitter chase which would see him take the steps four at a time. Water was starting to flood the site again. They felt as if they were on a sinking boat. When they reached the submarine, the water was already up to their knees and although Alpha 2 had considerably reduced the head start they had, taking it from one hundred yards to fifty, he didn’t catch up quick enough before the hatches were locked and he started to punch the shell in rage.

“Shall I save him with a quick recharge?” asked Will.

“No, let him rot at the bottom of the sea. Fuck him!”

The water had already covered the mini-submarine and it would be practically impossible to swim to the vessel. Even though he knew he was going to die, he wasn’t frightened; instead, he was furious at not being able to carry out his job. Time ran out and the magnetic field vanished, allowing millions gallons of water to fall on his head. It took less than a second for him to die.

D
espite the journey lasting less than one hour and thirty minutes, at an average speed of 3700 miles per hour, James thought that it had taken them over four hours to travel the five thousand miles between Area 51 and Stonehenge. Not even the tension of the takeoff, where the plane had reached an astronomical speed before leaving the ground, had allowed him to forget about his daughter.

It was his fault she had been kidnapped but he tried not to think about it. They didn’t intend to hurt her, at least until they had possession of the fragments, because Lily was the only safe-conduct they could use to get to him.

“This is the pilot of SR-91. Do you read me?” Nobody replied. “This is SR-91 Aurora. We are currently at the coordinates 51 10’ 44”N 1 49’ 34”W. Do you read me?”

Eventually somebody spoke. “We’ve been waiting for you, SR-91. We’ve diverted all the traffic on land, all the roads are clear for you.”

The plane suddenly slowed down and turned in the air. It felt as if it was getting ready to touch down but that was simply impossible as there was no landing strip in a thirty mile radius. The pilot activated the professor’s headphones so that he could also listen to the conversation and, judging by his words, he seemed to be talking to somebody who was waiting for them on the ground.

“What about air traffic?”

“There isn’t any. We’ve closed off all the airspace within a fifty mile radius.” Over the plane’s communication system, James heard a voice broken up by static but yet very sure of itself. “You are free to land.”

“What?! That’s impossible! There isn’t enough space!” cried James just as the pilot cut off the communication.

He had heard part of the conversation that the officer in chief had had with his link on the ground and he trembled in his seat just thinking about what he was going to do. He would have preferred not to have heard anything. He gingerly pulled himself up to the window and saw that below his feet was the most famous monument in the United Kingdom - Stonehenge.

He had visited the megalithic monument several years previously, and it seemed to be exactly the same except for the car park five hundred feet away and which was being expanded by using the adjacent land as overspill. Something attracted the professor’s attention. The car park was completely empty, which was truly strange because it was an extremely popular monument.

The pilot seemed to read his thoughts and spoke to him via the internal communication channel. “We’ve restricted access to the area for a twelve-mile radius. See that highway between the car park and the stone circle?” James shot him an angry look. He though it was an abomination to call the most famous megalithic monument in the world a mere “stone circle”. “Fasten your seatbelt. We’re going to land on it!”

“You’re crazy! You’re going to get us killed!”

“Calm down. This aircraft needs just under a mile to land safely and that highway is over a mile wide.”

“But it’s so narrow!

“Twenty-six feet, more than enough for the landing gear to come down. Nothing will happen if the wings go over the width of the highway.”

James chewed over the possibility of some traffic light fixed to the sidewalk. It could rip one of the wings in two! But it was too late, the pilot was descending slowly and the landing gear was already starting to unfold.

God help us!

In spite of the high speed at which they were approaching the ground, the touch down was smooth and precise. When the brakes were applied, James’ head jerked forward and he couldn’t help but tense his muscles to try and stop it from being torn from his body.

Now I know why all pilots have necks as strong as an ox.

They covered the first eight hundred yards in a matter of seconds. It even felt like the narrow highway-turned-landing strip wasn’t going to be sufficient and that they would end up in one of the adjacent fields at any minute, engulfed in a ball of flames. After passing the monument, the plane eventually stopped three hundred yards away.

James stepped out of the plane without any problems.

There were only four people on the site, two scientists and two archaeologists. They had several all-terrain vehicles which they had had the audacity to park inside the structure itself, something which was completely prohibited and most likely resulted in a prison sentence.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Oldrich,” said one of the archaeologists when he was near enough, extending his hand in a polite gesture. “Welcome to Stonehenge.”

The professor shook his hand as he surveyed the gigantic and enigmatic arrangement of stones which lay less than five yards in front of him. As he full well knew, Stonehenge was a megalithic monument, or a cromlech; in other words, a series of stones or menhirs rooted in the ground in the shape of a circle or ellipsis. Located in Great Britain, the oldest part dates back to 3100 BC and it is thought that the site was semi-abandoned 1500 years later.

“Have you found anything?” asked James in more of a hurry than usual. He was still thinking about his daughter.

The archaeologist nodded and smiled. It was if he had spent the last few hours fervently hoping and wishing he would ask that question. “Of course! But before I tell you anything, let me explain some of the basic notions surrounding Stonehenge so that you can better understand the symbolism we have found.”

James thought he knew virtually everything there was to know about the site but he decided it would be a good idea to listen to the theories of an archaeologist who was an expert in the matter.

“Most people are unaware that it was constructed in three stages, with the last one being divided into various sub-phases. The first stage corresponds to the mid-Neolithic period, or 2950 to 2900 BC, when the circular embankment was built along with a trench of one hundred yards in diameter. Fifty-six pits were excavated inside it, and they are known as ‘Aubrey holes’. In the second stage, from 2900 to 2400 BC, wooden posts were placed in these holes and the ditches began to fill up with silt and animal bones. The third and final stage, from 2550 to 1600 BC, was divided into various sub-stages. There are thought to have been six in total, where they gradually created the four concentric stone circles which are visible today.”

James was enthralled. It had been a good idea to let him speak after all.

“The outer circumference measures around thirty yards in diameter. It comprises thirty vertical sarsen stones of around thirteen feet in height, upon which rest thirty lintels, each around ten feet wide and weighing twelve tons. The space between the vertical stones is usually somewhere between three and five feet.”

“Are you talking about the outer circle or the stones in the shape of a horseshoe?”

“No, no, I’m talking about the outer circle, of which only seventeen vertical stones are left standing today.” James didn’t have to count the blocks; the archaeologist’s explanations were accurate. “The five sarsen trilithons were the next step. As you well know, trilithons are nothing but two vertical stones which between them support the weight of a third horizontal stone. There are fifteen stones in total, with each one weighing between forty and fifty tons. They were carried over eighteen miles from the Marlborough Downs. Four of them are twenty feet in height, while the central one opposite the altar measures over twenty-six feet.”

James turned to look at the three which were still standing. With no effort at all, three pairs of gigantic vertical stones had supported the weight of another three horizontal stones for thousands of years.

“The two bluestone circles were created later. They are called ‘bluestones’ because they take on that tone when they come into contact with rainwater. One is inside the horseshoe, with each stone weighing six tons, and the other is between the horseshoe and the sarsen circle, and each of those blocks comes in at three tons.”

“And then the site was finished?”

“Not exactly,” he replied. “They also added two circular holes, placed the four calendar stones, made the approach route and laid the Slaughter and Altar Stones.”

“Were they all put into place in the later sub-phases?”

“Exactly! It was a laborious task.”

James frowned. “A laborious task which we still puzzle over to this day.”

A deafening sound suddenly came from one of the sides. The two scientists were unloading a machine from the trunk of the four-wheel drive which they then dragged to the center of the structure.

“There are several theories. Some think that it was a cremation site for important figures, whereas others are convinced that it was used as a sacred place to carry out magical healing rituals.”

“Some believe it could be an astronomical observatory which served to forecast the seasons. From what I understand, the structure is facing such a way that it indicates the solstices and equinoxes exactly. It is also true that many investigators think that the fifty-six holes mark the weeks in the lunar cycle or the points where the Sun is blocked out by other bodies, resulting in eclipses,” added James.

The archaeologist was surprised at his guest’s knowledge and for a moment he felt stupid when he thought about the sermon to which he had subjected him earlier; it had been a little uncalled for given that he probably knew everything already. “That’s right. The temple to the sun is another of the many theories that exist. Ancient civilizations obviously placed a huge amount of importance on the influence of the sun on crops. It is not crazy to buy into the idea that the sun could have held a spiritual meaning for them.”

Another noise, this time much quieter than the previous one, interrupted their exchange of ideas. The scientists had activated the machine that they had earlier unloaded from inside the all-terrain vehicle and a beam of light appeared on the barrel of the device. It looked like a futuristic weapon of mass destruction about to shoot a death ray.

“Let’s go! The scientists are going to start the extraction.”

James raised an eyebrow. “What? Extraction?”

“Yes, we’ve located the energy source and we are proceeding to extract it.”

“But… where is it?”

The archaeologist smiled and said nothing for a few seconds. “It’s best that you see for yourself, otherwise you’re not going to believe it.”

F
rom the woods situated to the right of the A303 highway towards Stonehenge and at little more than a thousand yards away, five men and a woman were carefully watching all movement within the site through their powerful long-range binoculars. They were spread out throughout the forest and hidden by the dense vegetation.

The woman was wearing camouflage military gear, steel-capped boots and a bulletproof vest. She seemed to be the head of an armed group who acted upon her orders with military obedience.

They had arrived at the site two hours before the Americans and had hidden in the woods, cordoning off the compound for a thirty-mile radius and forcing all the tourists to leave the area cursing under their breath.

The girl took a moment to tie her hair back so as to avoid it falling into her eyes. She took out her phone and dialed a number which she knew by heart. After three rings, there was silence. “Dad, they’ve already found it and they’re going to take it out.”

“Where is the assault group?” he asked, terrified.

“They are prepared and ready for action. When they have the source in their possession, our five snipers will kill them before they can raise the alarm. It will take us seven minutes to snatch it from them and get to safety.”

“The mission must be postponed!”

“What?! Jesus Christ!”

“Alpha 2 hasn’t answered my calls. It’s been over four hours and he’s showing no signs of life, plus the first half of the source is currently being transported to Area 51 from the AUTEC base. It has clearly been a failure.”

“Is Richard still alive?” she asked in disgust.

“Yes, but don’t worry Mary. Call off the mission and let them escape with the second fragment.”

The woman punched the ground in rage but she hardly felt any pain. She was absolutely furious. “We can make do with one of the halves!”